Argumentative Essay On Dissent And Disagreement

Disagreement/Dissent Argumentative Essay
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”. [Thomas] Howard Zinn, a political activist and American historian made this statement at the height of his carrier, relating that dissent is essential to the attitudes of the government by the people. [Howard] Daniel J. Bornstein argues, however, that disagreement is healthy and contributes to a working government, while dissent is a negative action and is ruinous to democracy. Bornstein defines disagreement as producing debate, while dissent is defined as a pulling apart from one another a trait of a minority group, insinuating that there is a large difference between the two. I believe that the two words are not polar opposites and that they are more related than what
Our founding fathers started out as a group of dissenters who were being oppressed and were tired of the life that they had in the British colonies which led them to write the Declaration of Independence. John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine and others were the leaders of that time who delivered speeches of impending liberty and wrote pamphlets’ advertizing the need for an independent nation. These men and other advocates took time to debate and argue in writing the Declaration of Independence, a document where they called their king a tyrant demonstrating dissention. These dissenters were a minority indeed, however, it was through their fiery perseverance for independence and freedom that they were able to break free from the British government and call themselves Americans. They had first disagreed with the kings decrees and then went as far as take action in accordance with their disagreement demonstrating dissention. This shows that disagreement and dissent work hand in hand as shown by the success of a nation’s